Dr Who for cinemas

August 25, 2008

New Doctor Who producer talks about bringing the time lord back to the big screen for the first time in 40 years.

BBC ratings hit Doctor Who could be heading to cinema screens in the near future according to head-writer and future Who producer Steven Moffat. The writer, who previously turned down a job as writer on Steven Spielberg’s ‘Tintin‘ will take over as producer of the show in 2010. When asked about his thoughts on a possible Who movie at this weekend’s Edinburgh International TV festival, the award winning writer answered “I would say yes, as long as it never gets in the way of the show. It would be great to see it at the cinema. It’s been there before so it would be good to see it again. A movie is 90 minutes, that’s not that different from making a single episode, so I’m not against it.”

The BBC fiction controller Jane Tranter made a similar comment about the possibility of a Who movie: “I would not rule out a film version of Doctor Who, no.”This is not the first time Doctor Who has been the subject of a movie, most recently in 1996 Paul McGann played the doctor in a TV only film. Sadly it didn’t perform very well with many fans complaining that it had been diluted too much to suit an American audience.

Prior to this Doctor Who had two cinema outings in the mid-sixties in “Doctor Who and The Daleks” and “The Daleks – Invasion earth 2150AD” both starred Peter Cushing as Doctor Who, however neither film are considered part of today’s continuity. Rather than portray the Doctor as an alien from Gallifrey, Cushing was a human scientist who invented his own time machine, Tardis.

Doctor Who returns to TV screens this Christmas, which kick-starts the last batch of episodes under the guidance of current producer Russel T. Davies.